“EASY CHOICES”
We were parked outside of large, fancy hotel, I don’t remember which one.
The anonymity of being one out of hundreds of parked cars was a little comforting. Jennifer had gone inside to see if the others were still checked in. Apparently this place was their de facto hideout. Whoever chose this place must have had money to throw around. She said it was one of her teammates, the one that paid for all their plane tickets. I found it suspicious, that’s for sure, if for no other reason than the generosity.
Sandy and I sat in silence. I couldn’t say anything to her. What was I supposed to say? I had a whole new realization. I could see what our relationship was all along, nothing more than an easy thing. What really upset me was that I had gotten really accustomed to it. I guess I was beginning to treat it like a second marriage. But it was easier because we didn’t have to see each other all the time.
“Frank…listen,” she started, “about what happened back there. I swear, I didn’t…It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I know the score. Pete got me drunk, got my car away from me, then dropped me off for you to keep busy ‘til the other guys came for the pick up. Right?”
“Frank, Gurly didn’t tell me anything. He just said I was supposed to keep you busy. He said…he said you’d be better off this way. “
“Better off in what way? I could have just crawled back into the bottle and forgotten about the whole thing, right? Go back to being the pathetic, drunken fuck up. That’d be better for everyone, huh? Well fuck, he’s probably right. It wouldn’t have been that hard. Feels like I been doing that my whole life. But I’ll tell you one thing, that girl wouldn’t have been better off. What about her? How am I supposed to live with that?”
I must have raised my voice a little because she screamed at me next. “Don’t fucking yell at me!” she said, “You never cared about anyone but yourself as long as I known you, and now all the sudden you gotta do right by this girl? She’s not your daughter, Frank! You abandoned her ten years ago, and helping out Jennifer is not going to make up for that!”
Every decision we make, every choice we are given, we have to struggle with what our intelligence tells us is right, and what our impulse tells us to do. For some people, it’s no choice at all, as the two are one in the same. For others though, like myself, it’s a constant struggle, and the easier of the two choices is usually taken. It’s not that I don’t want to be a better person, it’s that somewhere along the way, I got to a point where I felt I didn’t deserve to be a better person and just let my impulses carry my decisions.
The last time my ex-wife spoke to me like Sandy just did; she left with a broken nose. She took our daughter with her and I’ve never spoken to either of them since. Now, I’m a man who can recognize his own faults no matter how much he tries not to, but that doesn’t mean I like to hear them. I could feel my mind racing and my fists clenching.
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